I think I take flying the NGX pretty seriously :) That is, I pay particular homage to the technical nuances of the operation and flight of the aircraft, the adherence to procedure, the precision and accuracy of inputs and the care and feeding of the machine itself...

 

All of this has sort of coalesced into what feels like a "personal challenge" of sorts, trying constantly to sort of outdo my last flight in how easily I could adapt to changes, or how smoothly I could perform and manuever or execute a procedure. In essence, I sort of "got into my own head" about the experience.

 

Just recently, I discovered a show on the History Channel called "Air Disaster" :(

 

I've been watching it religiously and I have to honestly admit, because of the familiarity that I think NGX imparts to us in even a superficial way of what airline pilots go thru when they fly, I find the show REALLY disturbing, and actually very frightening...

 

The recreations are scripted from voice recorder data from the black boxes, and honestly the acting is pretty poor, but that doesn't even matter... When I'm watching the recreation and the pilot and first officer are in extreme duress, and the pilot actually says "Oh GOD DAMMIT!" as he's wrenching with the flight controls as the plane slams into the ground repeatedly and then into an airport fuel tank farm, I just kind of have to look away for a moment...

 

I think its a testament to the creators of the NGX that this kind of things bothers me so much now to watch, where it never really did before other than to think "Oh poor people" and just gloss over it... I think that the experience, the very real experience and quality of the simulation that NGX provides places armchair pilots like me not only in that high level mindset required to do it well, but it also in a very real way creates an affinity with the responsibilities of sitting in that chair, even a simulated one, particularly for the people who do it well, or aspire to.

 

I always fly after watching an episode of that show... I sit down, take a deep breath and think to myself, "I'm going to do this all exactly right"

 

I know I know... Its pretty pathetic... but during one "bad" landing, I found myself all screwed up right before the flare where I had let the plane drift too far to the right of the runway because I got badly behind in my inputs, it came down hard with a few wild oscillations of the tail left and right as I fought it to stay on the runway, and I did my own little "Ohhhhh Shiiiiiiit!" before I got it back under control... I taxied to the gate, sort of ambivalent that I saved the situation and as I was running thru the shutdown procedure in FS2Crew and then triggered the deboarding of passengers function in GSX and then very distinctly heard the voice of a little boy saying "BYE BYE!" and the Flight Attendant replaying "Awww... bye now!" It just kind of made me bite my lip for a seconds...

 

I'm not particular melodramatic, but hopefully the little twinge I felt from that only means I'm human...

 

I don't skip anything in the preflight anymore...

 

Safe flying!

I know exactly how you feel and I cannot add anything to your narrative. I think it's a testament to the reality of this particular simulation given the depth of possibilities you have to escape and re-enter any level of imagination. Knowing both ends of the extremes gives you impetus to be as faithful to real-world operations as you can.

 

Thanks for posting.

Nice one!

All of this has sort of coalesced into what feels like a "personal challenge" of sorts, trying constantly to sort of outdo my last flight in how easily I could adapt to changes, or how smoothly I could perform and manuever or execute a procedure. In essence, I sort of "got into my own head" about the experience.

 

Me too. Thats why I ended up coding my own monitoring app so I could perform same flight again and try to perform better.

I've been watching it religiously and I have to honestly admit, because of the familiarity that I think NGX imparts to us in even a superficial way of what airline pilots go thru when they fly, I find the show REALLY disturbing, and actually very frightening...

 

I, too, get a disturbing feeling whenever I watch "Air Disaster," as well as "Air Crash Investigation" on National Geographic.

 

The most disturbing one that I have seen so far is the Alaska Airlines MD-83 that lost its horizontal stabilizer trim control and plummeted into the Pacific Ocean just north of Los Angeles. The crew had a combined experience of over 18,000 hours on that type of aircraft and never gave up trying to regain control of the aircraft, despite the impossible situation.

 

I think its a testament to the creators of the NGX that this kind of things bothers me so much now to watch, where it never really did before other than to think "Oh poor people" and just gloss over it... I think that the experience, the very real experience and quality of the simulation that NGX provides places armchair pilots like me not only in that high level mindset required to do it well, but it also in a very real way creates an affinity with the responsibilities of sitting in that chair, even a simulated one, particularly for the people who do it well, or aspire to.

 

Couldn't have said it better myself, David.

 

The NGX certainly has enabled me to complete my transition from being an average simmer to an ultra-hardcore one. Although it's forgiving enough for just about every skill level to fly, it truly takes dedicated study, experience, and airmanship to master. I have been flying the NGX almost everyday since it was released and I still find myself learning the minute intricacies of the systems. I occasionally just have an "off' day too, but the challenge of obtaining efficiency, consistency, and perfection keeps me practicing and learning from my mistakes.

I don't skip anything in the preflight anymore...

 

I was reading accident reports yesterday (small planes) and saw so many things that could have been prevented if the pilots had just taken a deep breath, let themselves settle down, and done the checklist. It's the little things that get you. A switch or a knob is small and yet it means so much.

I'd be more concerned with the bus/taxi driver on the way to the airport..

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXoav_UbHe8&list=UU_Hv0n27l2CTNL3RRZzYGiA&index=1&feature=plcp :) Hope you enjoy..

The one show that really really threw me off, and made me think, especially after using the NGX is the episode "Ghost Plane"....Helios 1.

All because of one knob............

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fC0aAY6oIjM

The one show that really really threw me off, and made me think, especially after using the NGX is the episode "Ghost Plane"....Helios 1.

All because of one knob............

 

 

 

That same knob is in your NGX too.

 

... ever heard a "Takeoff configuration warning" sound at 12,000ft?

 

If you ever do, my suggestion is to press that "ALT" button on the MCP to get out of climb mode and get your oxygen masks on.

 

And I agree, that MD83 Alaskan incident episode was one of the hardest to watch. No blame on the pilots there at all, they did their best, but even the best wasn't enough to save the day. "Turn it upside down and push forward on the yoke" to get positave climb back was as creative as anyone could possibly get, but even that didn't save them.

 

Other episodes are nice though, the Air Transat glide, the Gimli glide... The pilots stuffed up fuel calculations or similar but saved it with some pretty amazing flying.

 

Other pilots putting a perfectly good aircraft into a stall and bringing that stall from cruise all the way to impact with full back-yoke (MD82 over Venezuela, Dash-8 Icing incident) are always a bit of a worry too.

 

Good series.

 

Trent Hopkinson

The one show that really really threw me off, and made me think, especially after using the NGX is the episode "Ghost Plane"....Helios 1.

All because of one knob............

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fC0aAY6oIjM

 

It's interesting because one flight I accidently left the packs off after takeoff and I got the same buzzer at higher altitude, I thought initially just as the Helios crew did "why is my takeoff config warning sounding", then I remembered the Helios accident and checked my cabin alt.... oops.

 

Seems a little silly to me to use a buzzer for a serious issue like cabin alt along with a more routine matter like takeoff config.

 

 

As for watching the air crash shows, it doesn't disturb me in the slightest, infact the more and more I know about aircrafts the less it disturbs me, even if the issue is something non recoverable.

 

Seems a little silly to me to use a buzzer for a serious issue like cabin alt along with a more routine matter like takeoff config.

 

 

Takeoff config can kill too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAPA_flight_3142

I used to watch these programs as well, and I was quite entertained by them. But after I started taking my simming a bit more seriously a few years back I can't bring myself to watch them. Now I'm not getting entertained by all those people dying, now I'm just getting disgusted by it.

Takeoff config can kill too.

http://en.wikipedia....APA_flight_3142

 

Of course, but you would still think the audio warnings would be unique to reduce confusion in a potential busy period of flight.

 

 

I used to watch these programs as well, and I was quite entertained by them. But after I started taking my simming a bit more seriously a few years back I can't bring myself to watch them. Now I'm not getting entertained by all those people dying, now I'm just getting disgusted by it.

 

I see them as educational, the fatalities are sad, but it's good to understand why it happened and how it can be prevented rather than just stop watching.

They say flying is 99% boredom and 1% shear terror, have to say I agree. I too find ACI to be quite the disturbing show on many levels, in particular the play back of the CVR....

 

Ró.

Yes the CVR playback parts are the most disturbing, I would hate to have to be the investigators having to listen to them for the first time.